Neurasmus Annual Meeting

This year's annual meeting of the Neurasmus Master's program, in which Charité is a partner university, took place in the first week of July in Göttingen. 

As usual, the graduating students presented their Master theses on the first day, and this time also attended a lecture by Prof. Erwin Neher, father of the patch-clamp technique and Nobel laureate in 1991. In the evening, a guided tour through the university town welcomed the participants.

Focus on Career Development
The Neurasmus program has become strongly committed to offering career guidance to its students. The second day of the meeting was dedicated to this topic: it started with a workshop where the current students discussed their career questions and issues with the alumni. The afternoon followed with talks by invited speakers from Sartorius, a biotech company from Göttingen and parallel meetings amongst the students and the advisory board for the program coordinators to come up with ideas to improve the career development of Neurasmus students.

Art and Culture
The third day was reserved for a day trip to the neighboring city of Kassel, which included a guided tour through Documenta – a contemporary art exhibition that takes place there every five years – and the 'Hercules Park' and its several waterfalls and fountains. And, of course, the annual meeting is never complete without its traditional karaoke night.

Closure and Next Steps
On the fourth and final day of the meeting, MedNeuro alumna and program officer Julia Rummel conducted a design thinking workshop powered by her company, Innoki. The goal for the students: to investigate how to find a suitable lab for a PhD. In the evening, the graduation ceremony and dinner for the second-year students took place in a beautiful outdoor setting. It is hard to say goodbye to Neurasmates, but we know it is always a mere 'see you later'. Next year's annual meeting will take place in Bordeaux, the Neurasmus headquarters, at the end of August, together with Orientation Week for the freshmen. Until then, we in Berlin are looking forward to welcoming the new Neurasmus students who are about to start their studies at the Charité!

by Mariana Cerdeira, PhD Student AG Harms

This article originally appeared September 2017 in CNS Volume 10, Issue 3, Spirituality in Science

Activating methods as a tool for effective teaching

Teaching is an almost inevitable part of academic life. Since I predict several teaching assignments on my career path, I recently decided to enroll in a course about activating teaching methods [1]. I had no prior knowledge about what these methods entailed, but enrolled in the course simply because I was not familiar with any teaching methods aside from frontally presenting information to students. 

So, on the day of the course, I entered the seminar room willing to be surprised, and that happened immediately: the first thing the instructor asked me to do was to draw a playing card from a deck. I took my seat, still curious about what the use of the card was, only to be shortly summoned by the instructor to form a group with the other participants that had the same card color as I did and to talk about what expectations we have from the course. If my thoughts were in any way astray at the very beginning of the course, at this point I was positively surprised, and excited that I would not have to sit through eight hours of someone monotonously lecturing, and be much more engaged with my peers and the course.

From Daydreaming to Participating

Engagement with the content is precisely what activating teaching methods are about. In the past, classroom dynamics were always dominated by the teacher. As a pupil, your engagement level could be on a continuum from overzealous question-asker to daydreaming scenery-admirer. To ensure that as many students as possible actually profit from class, activating teaching methods seek to help the students stay alert and, as the name suggests, actively participate in class. This way, the task of content delivery is shared by teacher and students. The art of teaching thus morphs from designing speeches and slides into finding ways for bringing out the best ideas from the students themselves.

Active methods bring out the best in students

 

There are many small exercises that can be used to achieve this, ranging from the well-known drawing of mind maps and explaining concepts to peers, to more obscure, but just as useful ones, like blacking out everything not essential in a text within a short timespan or speculating about how parts of a process might work together before being taught the specifics (see Box below) [2]. What all of these methods have in common is that students are encouraged to mindfully handle the task, to process content that was taught within the same course unit, and to make connections to prior knowledge. As I found out myself, these characteristics help students remember the matter with more ease, and reduce the effort of making all the connections from scratch when studying individually after class.

Alternating Teaching Phases

Naturally, these techniques are no one-size-fits-all solution for every teaching context. Activating teaching techniques only make sense when used in alternation with timespans where the students receive information from the instructor. The idea of alternating these two phases comes from the educationalist Klaus Döring [3]. The beauty of this approach is that it can be applied both for individual units as well as the entire course. One example of this could be interspersing units in which the students have to provide most of the content, like giving presentations or preparing posters.

CRISPR-Cas teaching model

I went on to use these methods in a course I taught to high schoolers about the CRISPR-Cas technology. My conclusion is that activating teaching methods require a much more intensive kind of preparation as a course instructor than plain presentations. One does not only have to have a clear array of concepts that students must learn in a given course unit, but also script-writing skills in order to orchestrate an engaging balance between the different types of activities, minimal crafting skills in order to prepare appealing materials and moderation skills in order to keep the course on the right track. Tiring as this endeavor might be, it resulted in highly positive feedback, both for the course I audited and for the one I taught.

“Divining models” is a technique that requires groups of students to make connections to previous knowledge and discuss them in order to solve a puzzle composed of paper pieces. The paper pieces can either be inscribed with parts of a process or shaped like the pieces of a complex, and they have to be brought in the right order or arrangement. I used this when teaching high schoolers about CRISPR-Cas systems: each group received an envelope with pieces representing the Cas9 protein, the target DNA, the tracrRNA, and they had to figure out how the DNA cleaving complex is assembled.

[1] Training with Elmar Groß at the Charité Gesundheitsakademie, 27th of April 2017, www.orbium.de

[2] Plocher I, Staiger M, Jösch G.: Train the Trainer. 2011

[3] Döring, KW: Handbuch Lehren und Trainieren in der Weiterbildung. 2008

by Ioana Weber, PhD Student AG Tarabykin

This article originally appeared September 2017 in CNS Volume 10, Issue 3, Spirituality in Science

From Neuroscience to Yoga and Meditation

An interview with Stephanie Bianchi, MSc in Neuroscience; Yoga, Meditation and Mindfulness Instructor

You hold a Bachelor in Molecular Biology and a Master in Neuroscience. Would you tell us more about your background?

As a little child, I always knew what I wanted to study. I was fascinated by the perfection of nature and felt driven to study more about how it originates all, hence my degrees in molecular biology and genetics. Later on in my career, I had the opportunity to collaborate on a research project on Fragile X Syndrome with the MIND Institute in Sacramento and the National Fragile X Syndrome Foundation in Guatemala. As I was completing the research project, I knew I wanted to expand my knowledge and understanding on the brain and molecular neurobiology.

In 2012, I received a scholarship from the Neurasmus program to study neuroscience and made my way back to Europe. Now that I look back, that time of my life has probably been the most transformative and life-changing period so far. I loved every second of it, even when I was at my lowest. I love neuroscience and the program made me fall deeper in love with that curiosity of wanting to know and experience “the mind” at its fullest. In 2014, I graduated from the University of Bordeaux and University of Coimbra as a MSc in Neuroscience.

Left: Carlos Salguero / Right: World Peace Initiative Foundation

How did yoga and meditation come into your life?

While I was in the middle of my master’s degree I suffered a major breakdown. I was suffering from depression, severe anxiety episodes, paranoid events, adrenal fatigue, dysregulations on the whole endocrine system and on the way to a hypothyroidism, just to name a few. In a matter of months, my health and mostly my mental health had deteriorated as never before. As ironic or serendipitous as life is, while I was being diagnosed with these disorders, I was also studying them at university. I went to several physicians and none of them offered me a holistic solution that would get to the root of the problem. From the little understanding of myself that I had back then, I deeply knew the problem was in my mind.

As a result and with the guidance of a wonderful team of experts in California, I started to dive deep into yoga, meditation and mindfulness practices, hand in hand with making some necessary lifestyle changes. In a matter of weeks, I could notice the benefits of strengthening the mind-body connection and my conditions started to subside. I felt deeply relieved and somewhat astonished by the awareness I was gaining from simply sitting with myself and observing my thoughts. I was truly amazed by the incredible potential of these practices that invite you to experience life from within and I wondered how come there was so little scientific research on the topic. From that point on, I have been deeply involved in the study of yoga, meditation and mindfulness, traveling to different countries and learning from different teachers and schools of thought. 

What motivated you to change careers so radically?

When my health started to improve, I felt more alive, utterly happy, deeply empowered and enjoyed a vitality never experienced before. I was able to perform better in less time, all my relationships improved, I felt an overflowing sense of peace and stillness and I had just discovered a highly improved quality of life. I always sensed there was more to life, and I guess I finally felt like this was a life worth living. 

"I had found “wellness gold” – it had to be shared"

Don’t get me wrong, I lived a wonderful life. I had lived in 5 different countries in 8 years, spoke 5 languages, had a supportive loving family and a global network of friends and I was on the way of what promised to be a successful career – yet I felt as empty as ever. I used to live with the constant chatter on my mind, chasing worldly pleasures and instant gratification, such as titles, success stories, material things, social status, the next big party and any other cue of social success – and while it was all great, I just could not care less about any of it anymore.

At that time, I thought I had just gone through a small crisis and my life would finally resume to finish my last year of university. Little did I know that it had only been the beginning of the transformation. The next year of my life I underwent a major transformation, on a physical, emotional and mostly on a mental level. It had been as if the very basis of my whole existence had been deeply questioned, restructured and I was now rediscovering the nature of the self, now with a deeper understanding of the mind.

I love neuroscience and I highly enjoyed all the years in the field, I just did not feel the same drive to pursue a career in research now that I had found what it felt to me like “wellness gold”. I personally had undergone a major crisis, where using mostly mind-body practices I had been able to restructure and rewire my brain into a more healthy, fulfilling, joyful and plentiful life. This had to be shared. It was as if the purpose of my life had been challenged and redefined to what I do now. I could no longer devote myself to my lab work and spend years on a research project. I felt driven to go out there and go deeper into the experience of the mind and share with the world the very known but untapped benefits of these millennial practices.

"The purpose of my life had been redefined"

Soon after my graduation, I took a long journey to the Indian Himalayas and Thailand, where I studied different meditation traditions, attended teachings of the Dalai Lama and studied yoga at Ashrams in different parts of India. Nowadays, I continue to enrich my practice under the study of different teachers. The experience of my disciplined and deep meditation and yoga practices never ceases to amaze me. I feel deeply inspired and motivated to continue to share the long list of benefits of these millennial practices all around the world.

Did you experience any fear or doubt when you left science?

Yes and no. Yes, the fear was always present. The mind chatter was constant: "what if you fail?", "you are committing career suicide", "you will regret it, you will never be able to come back to science again", etc. But I had now gained a deeper understanding of the self and the way the mind works. I stood strong by a deep resilient conviction that this was the path I was supposed to take and so I did. With time, this resilient and empowered knowing has only become stronger, finding myself revered and constantly revitalized, energized and empowered by what I do every day. I sleep less, enjoy a wealth of well-being, wake up every day looking forward to what I call my job and I feel so grateful to have found a new and more suitable lifestyle and career for me. 

Are you still involved in science in any way?

Two years ago I co-founded a foundation called Mindful Guatemala, in which we teach children, teenagers and adults how to use practical Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) techniques to assist behavioral, emotional and physical issues and to generally improve their quality of life.

We are now on the way to becoming a for-purpose organization, raising awareness of the potential therapeutic benefits of these standardized techniques, implementing them in national and regional companies, organizations, schools and foundations as a way to empower individuals to prevent stress-related conditions and to help them navigate through difficult situations. In the near future, we aim to support the 8-week MBSR interventions with scientific evidence.

In addition, I have been collaborating with an institution that provides higher education for teens and adults with neurodevelopmental disorders, where I have been teaching mindfulness, yoga and meditation techniques for the last 3 years, and observing amazing results in participants with Autism, Down Syndrome, Fragile X Syndrome, Angelman Syndrome, among others. We are now collaborating with a group of psychologists and physical therapists developing a curriculum on how to teach the different populations different techniques according to their needs and our experience in these past years.

My deepest wish is to be of assistance to bringing forth this convergence we have been seeing in the last years between Western scientific research methods and Eastern millennial practices. Why only settle for one world when we can combine the best of both?  

by Stephanie Bianchi

MSc in Neuroscience / Mindful Guatemala

This article originally appeared September 2017 in CNS Volume 10, Issue 3, Spirituality in Science

The Neuroscience of Yoga: Bridging the Gap Between Spirituality and Science

Yoga has become increasingly popular in the last decades and anyone who has attended a handful of yoga classes would agree to feeling an increased sense of emotional stability and mental clarity after practice. Nowadays, thanks to sophisticated brain imaging techniques, neuroscience is revealing exciting and transformative insights about the art and science of yoga. Western science is finally confirming what eastern practitioners have been reporting and documenting for over 2,000 years: that yoga and meditation can literally rewire the structure of the brain. 

What Is Yoga, Anyway?

Yoga (from Sanskrit meaning “unity”) is an ancient practice that unites the innate capacity of human beings to realize their true potential. We recognize our highest potential through the practices of the various yoga disciplines, such as yoga asana or physical postures, breathing regulation, meditation, study of teachings, devotional chanting, among others. In the West, we became familiarized with yoga asana, which only represents one aspect that the practice uses to align us with our highest potential and develop higher qualities, such as more love, compassion, humbleness, kindness, empathy, insight and service.

In the early 2000s, Richard Davidson from the University of Wisconsin jump-started the convergence of both worlds with his famous research on meditating Buddhist monks, finding mental training in form of meditation may induce short and long-term neural changes in the brain [1]. Several other researchers have followed, including Sarah Lazar, who found that brain regions associated with attention and sensory processing were thicker in people practicing meditation. The changes were observed even in novice meditators with as little as two weeks experience. This means that not only meditation professionals benefit from the practice [2]. 

Sharpening Higher Cognitive Functions

In as little as 15 years, the emerging field has witnessed almost a 10-fold increase in published research papers on the impact of yoga in human health [3]. Several papers focus on the pre-frontal cortex and the attentional engagement that yoga requires. Positive changes in the brain structure and function of areas related to awareness, decision-making, executive functions, self-regulation and attention have been observed [4], leading to an efficient regulation of emotions, social behavior, impulsivity, fears and conflicting thoughts. This area is also strongly implicated in human qualities such as empathy, consciousness, social and emotional intelligence, insight, intuition and attuned communication [5]. One of the most interesting studies in this area found that 50 year-old meditators had similar cortical thickness as 25 year-olds, suggesting that yoga might offset age-related cortical thinning [2] .

via Flickr by Amila Tennakoon

Nowadays, one of the most prevalent health threats is stress. Everybody has experienced it in one way or another. Long-term stress can have significant adverse effects on health and is a risk factor for many major illnesses, such as heart disease, stroke and depression [6]. Neurobiological studies have implicated the amygdala as a crucial area involved in our stress response. A recent study found that participants following an 8-week yoga intervention reported significantly reduced perceived stress and a reduction in the right basolateral amygdala gray matter density [7], furthering our understanding of why we feel so good during and after a yoga class. 

Breathing Into Your Memory Center

The hippocampus plays a vital role in long-term memory, learning, navigation and spatial orientation. Recent studies have found an increased hippocampal volume in elderly participants over a period of 6-months, suggesting that yoga could have the potential to alleviate age-related neurosenescence, findings of particular importance for the field of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease [8]. Furthermore, depression is a potential risk factor for cognitive decline and dementia and recent reviews suggest that a yoga intervention might effectively reduce these symptoms [9].  

I think everyone who has taken a yoga class can relate to the unique experience that this practice brings to one’s day. Our mind can be in an absolute turmoil when getting to class, thinking about the next deadline, the shopping list, answering our boss's email, and so on, but then we feel absolute peace when lying down in savasana, the final resting posture. Yoga has been shown to restore the autonomic nervous system to a healthy balance by stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system. It reduces our heart rate and blood pressure, eases our respiration and increases heart rate variability – all signs of improved parasympathetic tone and a peaceful smiling face after class [10].

Yoga might offset age-related cortical thinning

 

A number of published papers conclude that breathing, meditation, and posture-based yoga increases overall brain health and yoga practice may be an effective treatment for a clinical and healthy aging population, in addition to being relatively easy and cost-effective to implement [11]. So now, if you have not yet experienced a yoga class, I invite you to attend one and feel for yourself all the benefits this millennial practice has to offer. After a while, yoga becomes not what we do, but rather how we do something. When we invite an ever-present awareness to all that we do, yoga becomes a way of living, rather than just a disciplined practice we commit to one hour a day.

by Stephanie Bianchi, MSc in Neuroscience / Mindful Guatemala

This article originally appeared September 2017 in CNS Volume 10, Issue 3, Spirituality in Science

 
[1] Lutz et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci, 2014
[2] Lazar et al,. Neuroreport., 2005
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=yoga
[4] Afonso et al., Front Aging Neurosci., 2017
[5] Desai, Effects of Yoga Nidra and other Meditation Techniques, In: Yoga Nidra: The Art of Transformational Sleep, 2017
[6] Tawakol et al., The Lancet, 2017
[7] Hölzel et al., Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci., 2010
[8] Hariprasad et al., Indian J Psychiatry, 2013
[9] Mathersul et al., Evid Based Complement Alternat Med., 2016
[10] Stephens, Children (Basel)., 2017
[11] Desai et al., Complement Ther Clin Pract., 2015

On Mind, (White) Matter and Meditation

In our modern times, everyone rushes between appointments, fulfills work-related tasks all day and is busy with several means of self-optimization. In a bid to find their inner center again and rest, people are increasingly turning to centuries-old traditions like yoga and meditation.

Meditation is a concept from several Asian spiritual traditions where one’s attention is focused on a single thing such as breathing, bodily sensations or certain words or phrases known as “mantras”. For example, an easy approach is progressive muscle relaxation, where you consecutively contract and then relax different muscle groups to focus on that particular sensation. In principle, meditation means turning away from distractions of any form and concentrating on the present moment. While it sounds relatively simple, it is not easy to escape outer and inner noise. To those wondering whether they meditate correctly, there is an easy way of checking: "if you are feeling better at the end, you are probably doing it right." [1]. Another aspect of meditative practice (which appears very Buddhist in its own right) is that there is no right way to meditate because there is no goal to reach. Instead, the journey is the real aim [2]. And just like physical exercise, you will perform better with practice.

There Are Many Paths to Meditation
What actually happens during meditation that drives Homo economicus to adopt centuries-old traditions to calm down? For several decades, science has been trying to elucidate the psychological and physiological mechanisms behind mindfulness and meditation. Unfortunately, despite increasing popularity in research, this particular field of study faces severe methodological problems: there is an immense degree of individual variety among the general background of neuro-connectivity, meditation practice, and expertise of the subjects. As a consequence, and even though researchers readily make use of EEG, fMRI, PET and other sophisticated neuroimaging techniques, results are often inconclusive.

source: http://bit.ly/2uWg0dA

One of the earliest studies reported a decrease in blood pressure of hypertensive patients following meditation [3]. EEG studies showed a reduced frequency of alpha and theta waves linked to meditative state [4]. Depending on the type and tradition, meditation may lead to different effects. For example, researchers found increasing sympathetic activity and arousal with practice of Hindu tantric meditation as opposed to heightened parasympathetic activity and calmness when following other traditions [5]. Network connectivity studies with expert Taoist meditators reported significant differences in brain white matter and functional network topology between resting state and during meditation [6], while others find activation of basal ganglia (caudate body), limbic system (entorhinal cortex) and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) [7].

Meditation focuses on the moment

Changes in brain activity and/or connectivity may also underlie the beneficial effect of meditation and mindfulness on pain. Pain consists of two elements: the sensory perception and the cognitive evaluation of this perception as painful. A review discussed the changes in brain activity with meditation practice as a consequence of increased thalamus and insula activity (where the sensation itself is processed) and a reduction in MPFC activity (responsible for the evaluation of pain). Therefore, it seems that meditation and mindfulness are effective because they alter the way sensory perception is assessed [8], a concept which may be applicable to a variety of health and mental problems.

Meditation to Improve Mental Health?
Recently, a large review took a deeper look at these topics [9]. Of all evaluated 18,000 citations, only 47 studies showed satisfactory methodological quality and could be included. From these, the authors conclude that meditation is likely not superior to active treatments (e.g. psychotherapy or medication) regarding stress-related problems, such as anxiety, depression and pain, yet a legitimate alternative in terms of side effects. One of the best accepted effects of meditation and mindfulness is stress reduction. It is not surprising, therefore, that big tech companies have started using these practices as a general leadership strategy to increase creativity and productivity [10].
What about you? Have you got experience with stress or ever lost your head over endless to-do-lists and half-baked could-be-done ideas? Maybe it is your turn to take your time and shape up your brain connections in order to be more creative, focused and happy!

by Bettina Schmerl, PhD Student AG Shoichet

This article  originally appeared September 2017 in CNS Volume 10, Issue 3, Spirituality in Science

[1] http://bit.ly/1CfRBPx
[2] http://bit.ly/29s6NAn
[3] Benson et al., J Chronic Dis. 1974
[4] Cahn and Polich. Psychol Bull. 2006
[5] Amihai and Kozhevnikov. Biomed Res Int. 2015
[6] Jao et al., Brain Connectivity. 2016
[7] Sperduti et al., Conscious Cogn. 2012
[8] Zeidan and Vago, Ann Y Acad Sci, 2017
[9] Goyal et al., JAMA Intern Med. 2014
[10] http://bit.ly/1TmWHgu

You Can Take a Course On (Calling) BS Now. For Real!

I present to you "Calling bullshit in the age of big data", a university-level course tackling bullshit in numbers, words and graphs rampant in the world around us.

You know a course will be off to a good start when the intro reads "The world is awash in bullshit…".  "Calling bullshit in the age of big data" is taught by Carl Bergstrom (biologist) and Jevin West (information scientist), two professors at the University of Washington. In case you didn’t get the memo, the course kicked off in Spring 2017 and is fully available online for free [1]. You can continue at self-paced tempo, as the lectures are divided into five or six parts of 3-12 min each.

Source: Twitter, used with permission

Combating New-School Bullshit
Allow me to elaborate a bit on why the course is totally worth your time. It begins with an introduction to bullshit, its philosophy, interesting examples and measures to refute it. Hilariously, during one point in the first lecture the professors called bullshit on their own bullshit by butchering the claims that they saw explosive growth in the course website’s visibility once it was up-and-running. This was all in a bid to explain "new-school bullshit" whereby people try to overwhelm others by fancy graphs. Aside from explaining statistical traps and trickery and big data gimmicks, the course offers useful ways to debunk bullshit even for the lay audience. Beware though: certain parts such as replication crisis and predatory publishing etc., may sound like a (very interesting) repetition of themes from the lab.

Ducks and Glass Slippers
There were certain parts that made me laugh long after I had finished the course and was reviewing my notes. First, the concept of data "ducks", coined by Edward Tufte. A duck is any graphic so heavily decorated with design elements that it distracts the reader with its visuals rather than communicating meaningful information. Another one was ''glass slippers'' (inspired by Disney’s Cinderella), which refers to forcefully trying to mold your data to a standard model.
Importantly, the professors defended science while exposing all the bullshit that comes with practicing it. They argued that science is not bullshit even amid a big reproducibility crisis because most of the hypotheses researchers come up with are at least plausible. Moreover, there are multiple ways to deviate from the null hypothesis. Science and replication are cumulative and conflicting results help to drive the field forward by compelling researchers to think of alternative explanations.
For those of you who just had a feel-good rush after reading that science is not completely a recipe for disaster, let’s go to the sobering part. The professors laid bare the factors that motivate scientists. And no, they don’t talk about the quest for the unknown or saving the humanity (get real!). Their premise is that just like all the other fields, people in science respond to incentives. Scientists are often driven to research for recognition [2], prestige and, most importantly, grant money and job security. Furthermore, Goodhart’s law (1975) [3] and Campbell’s law (1979) [4] also state that when a type of measure (number of citations in elite journals, for instance) becomes a target for researchers, it is no longer a good measure.

Practice fact-checking online

Lastly, much to my delight, the professors addressed the hotly debated issue of fake news as well. Money is the driving force behind fake news. Creating fake news stories is one thing but why do people spread them? Many factors contribute to this fast spread of bullshit, such as laziness to do some serious fact-checking, self-validation and sharing links just to increase social visibility. Social media is a free resource that gives everyone the opportunity to create and disseminate bullshit. However, it becomes a problem of even greater magnitude when reputable media also become an accomplice. Their aim is to take the lead in breaking the news and triggering people, by any means necessary, towards click-bait.

How to Call Out Someone on Their BS Effectively
So where does that leave us? As scientists, we have an even greater responsibility not to get carried away by the cancerous trend of sharing for the sake of social visibility. In order to efficiently call out a skeptical claim on its BS, collect all relevant information, double-check your facts, and run them by someone who knows more about the subject matter. If you err, admit your mistake, and admit it fast. Refute bullshit by tackling the core facts, spend less time explaining the dubious ones, and keep your argument simple – or else your approach may backfire.
Fun, engaging and equal parts thought-provoking, "Calling bullshit" is a timely course for young would-be scientists as well as lay people. It is neither too long nor too predictable content-wise. You can follow the course on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/callin_bull


[1] http://bit.ly/2vVpa7v
[2] http://bit.ly/2vVmuXn
[3] http://bit.ly/2vVcIoa
[4] http://bit.ly/2vVnQRX

by Zara Khan, MSc Student MedNeuro

This article originally appeared September 2017 in CNS Volume 10, Issue 3, Spirituality in Science

Follow Up: Child/Family Space at Charité

On November 1, 1848 the first US women's medical school opens in Boston. Since then the rights for women changed a lot: In our society it is common that women can study and be doctors just like men. However, as nature can not be changed, it is still the woman who has to carry the baby and breastfeed. Unfortunately this can be an obstacle when a mother-to-be or a breastfeeding mum want to combine motherhood an work.


In our March edition of the newsletter (Vol. 10, Issue 1), we included a series of interviews with female members of the Charité research community. One of our participants mentioned the lack of a room in the CCO for breastfeeding women, or staff members who need a room to rest during their pregnancy (read the full interview here).
Kimberly Mason from the NeuroCure office pointed out that such a room equipped with a couch or mattress for anyone needing a rest was initially planned. Unfortunately, when the Charité highrise renovations began, the CCO had to absorb several groups and services. There was an intense scramble for space and the resting room got repurposed.

However, such a space does actually exist: on Campus Mitte you find it in Hufelandweg 9, Level K1, Room 006. There is also a parent-child room on the Virchow Campus. For details see: https://familienbuero.charite.de/charite_mit_kind/kinderbetreuung/kinderzimmer/

Since one room does not cover the needs of all pregnant women and parents with their children for the whole campus, maybe there is something we can do. We want to explore creative alternatives and would like to hear your opinion.

Thank you Kimberly for the helpful information!

by Claudia Willmes, Post-doc AG Schmitz

This article originally appeared September 2017 in CNS Volume 10, Issue 3, Spirituality in Science